


The Misadventures of Hornet the Hopeless Sapphic

by One_lovely_little_idiot



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Character Study, F/F, Fluff, Music, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Ships to Be Added, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, a little bit of existential dread, as a treat, underrated ships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:36:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29686842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/One_lovely_little_idiot/pseuds/One_lovely_little_idiot
Summary: A collection of oneshots following Hornet and the many underrated bachelorettes of Hallownest. This is mainly an exploration of Hornet as a character and the many possible wlw ships she has that get overlooked by this fandom.
Relationships: Hornet/Myla (Hollow Knight)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	The Misadventures of Hornet the Hopeless Sapphic

**Author's Note:**

> Eyy have some Myla headcanons for the soul:  
> \- Myla developed insomnia after being cured from the infection due to how long she spent just not sleeping in Hallownest’s stasis. Her internal clock went WHACK.  
> \- She isn’t native to Hallownest and instead travelled there to find her fortune in its crystals. She came from a mining town in a neighbouring kingdom.  
> \- She came from a large family where she was the youngest of many sisters.  
> \- She’s gotta be AT LEAST slightly buff from working in a mine constantly. Good for her.  
> \- The songs she sings remind her of home and her sisters.  
> \- She probably named the lumafly in her helmet. I haven’t thought of a vaguely canon sounding name yet but I’ve jokingly called them Johnathan in my head before.  
> \- Like irl miners, she has cut scars on her hands that get coloured by the minerals she mines. Hers are pink from the crystals.  
> \- That song she sings in game is made by a songwriter who left the kingdom when the infection started rearing its head.  
> \- In the early stages of development Myla was only called ‘the miner’ and was also male soooooooo trans rights !!

With their battle and victory against the Radiance Ghost ended Hallownest’s descent into even deeper ruin, the Hollow Knight’s suffering, and Hornet’s duty to protect the kingdom. No longer did she have any obligation to spend her days serving an already dead kingdom. She was free. She should be happy. 

Yet each night a restlessness plagued her sleep. She had walked out the Black Egg with not only one sibling safe, but another one freed, and she had finally been permitted the option to live a peaceful life. No danger, no stress, no being hunted, no surviving from meal to meal. Of course she took it. This was the best possible ending after all. 

She should be happy. But she wasn’t. 

She’d spent so many nights living alone ever since she’d left the Hive, training herself to on command sleep in short bursts in even the most uncomfortable environments. And yet now, in her cozy little house when she laid in her stupidly cozy little hammock she just  _ couldn’t.  _

She’d once had herself under such a steeled control, yet she was helpless against the thoughts racing through her head every time she laid it to rest. She’d lived her whole life being something, fulfilling a role somewhere. Deepnest’s heir, the Hive’s trainee knight, Hallownest’s sworn protector, and suddenly she wasn’t anything but herself. 

Quirrel had gone through a similar situation, suddenly losing a lifelong job that he’d felt there was nothing left for him in life once he’d fulfilled, though it wasn’t long before he’d bounced back with a new meaning, something about enjoying the simple act of living itself? Hornet hadn’t really understood what he’d meant, only knowing that suddenly he was just happy again somehow. 

She just couldn’t follow in the same way. She didn’t care for the little things in life, the pointless little details Quirrel could spend hours in awe over. For her life wasn’t beautiful, or ugly, it was just life. 

And she hated it. There was no role for her in it, there was no reason she was there. Suddenly she had been permitted to exist for herself and only herself, and she didn’t know  _ what _ she wanted. 

Her needle rested by the door still strung, as if there would be a time she would use it again and be a knight of Hallownest again. It was a fool's thing to do, she knew, there was no going back. 

Each night this stole a space in her mind and made it impossible to sleep easy. She couldn’t lay still, she had to do something, but there was nothing  _ to do _ except to exhaustedly toss and turn in her hammock. For the first time in her life she found herself missing the perpetual danger that had her constantly keeping her guard up in Hallownest’s underground, because at least then she’d had a purpose. How could it be so hard to just live peacefully? Ironically this was the least peaceful she’d ever felt. 

Another night she laid with her sheets twisted around her, head full of a thousand wishes to have a purpose again, alongside it a deep tiredness weighing her in place. She’d expected that night to be just like all her others, drifting in and out of dreamless bouts of sleep. That is, until she heard a soft humming. 

Faint, partially muffled by the walls of her house, but incredibly sweet sounding. It was a slow tune holding a sort of melancholic edge, yet this singer brought their own optimistic edge to it like new hope. The person had to be outside, maybe by the Town’s central bench. What had brought them outside at such an hour Hornet had no clue, but she didn’t want it to stop. The humming was soft, carefree, seemingly unaware anyone would be awake to hear them. 

The tune was brief and came to a close, and for a long pause there was only silence. Hornet feared that would be the end of the music before a new one was begun, this one with lyrics. 

“ _ Bury my mother, pale and slight.  _

_ Bury my father with his eyes shut tight.  _

_ Bury my sisters, two by two.  _

_ And then when you’re done, let’s bury me too. _ ” 

Hornet had never heard the song before but felt herself instantly taken by a liking for it. She quite enjoyed the jarring contrast of the cheerful tune mixed with the morbid lyrics. 

Slipping out her hammock, she made her way to the window closest to the town centre and opened it to hear the singing better. Her window wasn’t at an angle where the singer could be seen, but that didn’t matter to still enjoy the music. 

“ _ Bury the knight with her broken nail.  _

_ Bury the lady, lovely and pale.  _

_ Bury the priest in his tattered gown.  _

_ Then bury the beggar with his shining crown. _ ” 

Hornet pulled over a chair and took a seat, letting her eyes close as she leaned against the wall. The thoughts that had been plaguing her ever since she’d walked out the Black Egg alive disappeared. The rest of the world melted away except for the singer’s voice. 

“ _ Bury my body, cover my shell.  _

_ Don’t grieve til morn’ when night has fell.  _

_ Here in darkness where I remain.  _

_ I’ll wait here forever, when light blooms again... _ ” 

Hornet didn’t know how long she’d spent listening to the voice until she woke up the next morning in the same position, feeling better restless than she had ever before. 

oOoOo oOo oOoOo 

Every night the anonymous singer would return to the Town centre at an ungodly hour, and like a sailor hearing a siren, Hornet would drag a chair to her window to listen to them. 

If you asked her why it captivated or put her at such ease, she would struggle to put it into words. There was just something so carefree about how they sang, wholesome, no active effort to seem stageworthy, just making because they enjoyed it. Perhaps Hornet was drawn to how this person seemed so free yet not lost at all for purpose like her. 

The one they sang most often was the one about burying all the different people of a kingdom, and given how much they seemed to enjoy singing it, it was only natural Hornet would grow to adore it too. The tune had crossed her mind earlier that day as she was hunting with Tiso. She’d hummed it when she thought she wouldn’t be heard, though it ended up she was and she received an odd look from the ant. 

Learning the identity of the singer seemed easy in practise. All she’d have to do is talk to them, and maybe she’d get to actually know them as a person, but a small fear held her back. They only sang at night at times where no one else should be awake, meaning they’d intended to be heard by no one. Revealing they’d had an audience this whole time might cause them to stop from self consciousness. The anonymity was gnawing at Hornet. 

She didn’t know enough people in Dirtmouth to figure out who the voice could belong to, especially with the recent influx of newly uninfected bugs settling in. 

Hornet usually wasn’t one to act before thinking each action over beforehand, but that night an impulse crossed her mind. She’d grown to know these tunes, and she was desperate to share in this person’s love of music, so could she not join in? She wouldn’t sing, no, that would sound more like a strangled maskfly rather than a harmony, but she wasn’t completely hopeless when it came to making music. 

She grabbed her needle and ran its thread from the point and then through the eye again, doing so multiple times until she had enough threads to substitute the strings of an instrument. She’d played it before, though only in the privacy of her own house and siblings due to her current amateur skill of it. It had never brought her much satisfaction to play it before, but now she wanted nothing more than to be heard by someone. 

The singer drew in a small breath after finishing the song, beginning to hum the intro to a new one. Their favourite song, perfect. Hornet waited a beat before hesitantly plucking a small melody along, intended to be just quiet enough that they would miss it. 

It wasn’t, and they didn’t. They abruptly stopped with a faltered note. Hornet froze too. For a few seconds of silence Hornet feared this would be it, the singer wouldn’t start again and they’d never return. She should’ve been happy with what she already had. 

Hornet stamped down her fear and plucked another note. She couldn’t let this freeze her now. She’d never hesitated in the face of any dangerous infected beast, this wouldn’t stop her either. 

The singer hesitantly joined back in, starting quiet at first before they found the confidence to return to their original volume. 

“ _ Bury my mother, pale and slight.  _

_ Bury my father with his eyes shut tight.  _

_ Bury my sisters, two by two.  _

_ And then when you’re done, let’s bury me too.  _

_ Bury the knight with her broken nail.  _

_ Bury the lady, lovely and pale.  _

_ Bury the priest in his tattered gown.  _

_ Then bury the beggar with his shining crown. _

_ Bury my body, cover my shell.  _

_ Don’t grieve til morn’ where night has fell.  _

_ Here in darkness where I remain.  _

_ I’ll wait here forever, when light blooms again... _ ” 

They fell into silence. Hornet had no idea if she should say anything, and if so what should she say? A greeting? A compliment to the singer?

Perhaps this would be the only time the two would play together. She hoped not, but at least for its duration it had been nice. The quietness was interrupted with the sound of a small crunching, dry grass being pressed down under someone’s footsteps, and it was getting closer. She moved out its view in case her horns might have been visible. The footsteps stopped outside her open window, following them coming a larger sound as they sat down. 

“Um, hel—hello?” a small voice called. 

Hornet was hesitant to respond, not from a lack of want to know this person, no, but a sudden feeling of self-consciousness mixed with an inkling that she might say something wrong. “... hi.” 

“Your playing is very lovely,” the singer complimented. Gratification faintly burned in Hornet’s cheeks. She tried to respond and found her words failing her. The singer continued, “I, uh, I hope my singing hasn’t been dist-disturbing you from sleeping, has it?” 

“... no. Quite the opposite actually. I’ve really been enjoying it.” 

“O—oh! Thank you.” 

It felt unfamiliarly intimate talking to this person like this. The only thing stopping them from sitting back to back was a wall. The veil of darkness did very little to stop Hornet from feeling like she’d disarmed herself completely before this stranger. 

It occurred to her this person now knows her house, and might be well aware of who they were talking to. “... do you know who I am?” 

“Nope. I don’t really know what house belongs to who. I haven’t been in Dirtmouth for long.” They must have been someone recently freed from the infection then. 

“I’m in a similar situation. I don’t know many people around here yet, though that’s probably because I’m just bad at talking face-to-face.” A resting bitch face combined with a lack of social experience would do that to anyone really. 

The singer’s little laugh was as sweet as their singing. 

“It’s, uh, nice to know I’m not the only one up at this hour. I haven’t been sleeping good ever since I was cured, but uh, how come you’re up?” 

“... life’s been changing. It’s hard to change with it.” Hornet hadn’t admitted that to anyone before, she wasn’t used to expressing vulnerability like that, but having said it it was like a weight being lifted off her mind. “... There are good changes happening as well though, like this.” 

“The music?” 

“I don’t really know how to say it.” Perhaps it was the feeling of safety, or for a song it had felt like she wasn’t just surviving, but enjoying living. “But it’s nice.” 

“Yeah… at first I only sang at night because I thought no one would hear me then, bu-but I think I’m glad that you did.” The singer paused. “Could I— could I get your name?” 

“... Hornet.” 

“That’s a really nice name. I’m Myla.” There was a hitch in her breath telling of her hesitation. “Would you maybe like to play together again sometime? There’s no pressure— it doesn’t even have to be face to face—“ 

“I’d love to.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Hehehhegfe I kinda wanna know if anyone can guess which character will be next. Some are kinda obvious, though others you may not initially think of


End file.
